True Cross

The True Cross, also known as Holy Cross, is the cross on which Jesus-Christ would have been crucifié. She became as from the 4th century one of principal the Reliques of Christendom, being the subject of a particular worship. Reliquaries bearing the name of staurothèques are especially manufactured to shelter the fragments. The Cross is indeed regarded as the instrument of the hello of all humanity since it is on it that Christ, while dying, would have repurchased the men of their sin, and particularly of the Original sin . Two festivals mark, in the liturgical Calendrier Christian, the importance of this object: the Invention of the Cross (May 3rd) and the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th).

Historical data

The Évangiles are the only documents gun to know the circumstances of dead of Jesus de Nazareth. According to the Gospel of Marc (oldest in date), written in Greek, Jesus would have died just apart from the walls of Jerusalem, in a place called Calvaire or Golgotha (i.e. " place of the crâne"). There, it would have been nailed on a stauros and is hung with a xylon between two criminals whom the Christian tradition designates under the name of " good and impenitent thieves ". A inscription carrying the reason for its judgment would have accompanied its torment. He would have died at the end of a few hours.

One knows thanks to archeology and with the ancient texts how was held this torment which we call Crucifiement. Condemned initially was attached or nailed (by the wrists and not by the palm of the hand) with a wood cross-piece ( stauros in Greek, patibulum in Latin). Then this cross-piece was driven in a vertical pile (in Greek xylon , i.e. wood, and in Latin the crux or furca ) less low than it in general is imagined, the feet of the torture victim touching the ground almost. The whole formed what the Romans called a the crux (from where the origin of French “cross”). One thinks that it had the form of one T. condemned died by asphyxiation, after several hours of sufferings. Particularly painful and humiliating, this kind of death was reserved to the slaves and to the not-citizens.

As from the 4th century, the Roman Empire having become Christian, this torment was abandoned because it was not appropriate any more for one Empire claiming officially God having been carried out of this manner. One thus forgot the real circumstances of died of Christ, and the image of the “cross” changed to become this object with four directions usually represented in the “crosses” and the “Crucifix” of our churches. Moreover, the Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate) having been made after the disappearance of this torment, this translation does not include/understand any more the terms employed by the text Greek and translated stauros by the crux , and xylon by lignum (which means “wood”). From where the current image representing Jesus carrying his cross: actually, condemned most of the time only the Patibulum carried.

Lastly, it is advisable to indicate the interpretation according to which the Titulus would be at the origin of the error of representation of the Croix of the Christ. This support nailed with the top of the cross, on the Patibulum , would have given him a little the form characteristic of the Latin Croix. According to Tacit Suétone and , Pontius Pilate would have made put on the titulus True Cross a Latin text in ( I esus NR azarenus R ex I udaeorum ), Hebrew and Greek:

“Jesus Nazaréen, the king of the Jews” .

The large priests asked Roman Procurateur to add " This man said … I am the king of Juifs" . Pilate answered: " what I have writing is écrit" . Thereafter, the Christian representations transformed the text while being limited to initial I.N.R.I , (in Latin I and J are the same letter).

Legends on the origin of the Cross

Many legends were diffused on the origin of the wood of the Cross. Indeed, it seemed inconceivable to the Christians of this time that wood having been used for the hello of all humanity is an ordinary wood. It was necessary thus that this wood has “a history”.

According to a first tradition, it would have been made of four wood different (because it is necessary to count the transverse amount, the trunk, the shelf carrying the inscription and the cross-piece for the feet of Christ): wood of olive-tree (symbol of the reconciliation), of Cedar (symbol of immortality and incorruptibility), of cypress and palm tree.

Another medieval tradition, going back to the Gospel Apocryphal book of Nicodème, is taken again at the 13th century in the Gilded Légende of the Dominicain Jacques de Voragine. The Cross of the redeemer was cut in the wood of the tree having pushed on the tomb of Adam, traditionally localized in Jerusalem, on the site even of the crucifixion. However, this tree is not other than that which pushed starting from a seed of the Arbre of the Life, sown in the mouth of Adam after his death by his son Seth. It is the archangel Michel who brought it to Seth since the terrestrial paradise in order to allow in the long term the repurchase of the Original sin . Indeed, Christ is in general designated like the " new Adam" , which repurchases the sin introduced into the world by the first man.

The tree having pushed on the tomb of Adam is then cut down on order of the king Solomon to be used as sawlog. Intended initially for the construction of the Temple, it is finally affected with that of a bridge, that of SILOE. The Queen of Sheba, returning visit with Solomon, kneels in front of this wood beam, with the premonition which it will be used to manufacture the cross of the passion of Jesus. According to another version, she would have written in Solomon to say to him that with this wood would be one day attached the man whose death would put an end to the kingdom Jews. Touched by this premonition, Solomon then orders to the workmen to withdraw the wood crowned of the bridge on SILOE and to deeply hide it under ground. And, at the place where the tree was hidden, was formed later the probatic swimming pool: so that water cured the patients. This version is illustrated for example by the frescos of Piero della Francesca with Arezzo. It was still necessary to give an account of the disappearance of the wood of the cross after the death of Christ. According to the most current versions, the three crosses (that of Christ and those of the small drainage canals) would have been thrown in a ditch, close to the ramparts of Jerusalem to a few meters of Golgotha.

History of the relics of the True Cross

The name of " True Croix" was more particularly given to a whole of relics going back to the cross discovered by Sainte Helene at the beginning of the 4th century. Cut out in several fragments and dispersed between several Christian sanctuaries, in particular Jerusalem and Constantinople, the wood of the True Cross represents with the Middle Ages a very widespread relic. As from the 13th century, many are the sanctuaries which claim to have fragments of them.

At the 4th century: holy Helene and the Invention of the Cross

At the 4th century, the Roman Empire becomes little by little Christian under the impulse of the emperor Constantin I {{er}} the Large one. This last, convert with Christianity in 312, makes build many basilica S in the whole of the Empire, in particular on the spot having sheltered the life of Christ. One of these basilicas, the the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, is set up on the supposed site of the tomb of Christ and the Golgotha. Quickly, this basilica claims to have a particularly prestigious relic: the True Cross.

According to partly legendary accounts, which appear as from the years 370, that is to say about thirty years after the death of Constantin, it is holy Helene, the mother of the emperor, who would have discovered the Cross of Jesus at the time of a Pèlerinage in Palestine undertaken in 326. The wood of the cross was discovered on the place of the Calvaire, after one made destroy the temple of Venus built by Hadrian, in order to set up the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre there. It is during the building site that three crosses would have been found. A miracle (or an inscription, according to the versions), would have made it possible to distinguish the cross from the Christ of those of the two small drainage canals.

There exist three primitive accounts of this inventio reliquarum . In 395, the bishop of Milan Saint Ambroise specifies that Helene would have found the crosses in an old cistern, and that she would have recognized that of Christ thanks to her inscription: " Jesus de Nazareth, king of Juifs". a version identical is brought back by saint Jean Chrysostome to the same time.

The legend becomes extensive then. The historian Sozomène (beginning of the 5th century) and other authors as Théodoret de Cyr (even time) specifies that the relics were divided between several churches of the Christian world, particularly Rome and Constantinople. Indeed, other churches that of the Holy Sepulchre start to assert the possession of fragments of the relic. One explains thus that the holy empress would have installed a fragment of the wood of the Cross in the palate built by her Constantin son in her new capital, Constantinople; it would on consequently occasion found the nails by which Christ had been crucifié, other relic asserted by the imperial capital. In the same way, in departure for Rome, the mother of Constantin would have carried with it important pieces of crowned wood and other relics having milked with the Passion of Christ. She would have placed the relics in her palate, calls “palate Sessorien” , and would have died little of time afterwards.

During the 6th century, Rufin d' Aquilée brings back the circumstances of discovered in an account considered as traditional, and which represents to some extent the result of the development of the legend:

“Helene came to Jerusalem, inspired by God. A celestial sign indicated the place to him which it was to dig. She withdrew from them three crosses, that of Christ and those of the two small drainage canals. Did Helene remain perplexed because how to recognize among them the wood on which Jesus had undergone his painful anguish? Macaire, the bishop of Jerusalem, which assisted the empress in her research, required that one bring on a stretcher a dying woman. In contact with the first cross, the dying woman remained insensitive: the second cross it also, did not produce any effect, but hardly the woman it had touched the third that at once it rose and started to go with spirit and to rent God. This miracle thus made it possible to distinguish the true cross. Helene announced three this cross, one intended for Jerusalem, the second in Constantinople, the third in Rome. ”

Bringing back a later development of the legend, the Golden Legend of Jacques de Voragine, fact allusion to the revelation of the site of the cross by a Jew named Judas. Following this discovery, it would have converted with Christianity, would have taken as Christian name Quiriace (or Cyriaque), would have become bishop of Jerusalem and would have died Martyr under the emperor Julien the Apostate.

The importance of discovered relic, whose supposed date would be the May 3rd 326, gave rise to the festival of the Invention of the Holy-Cross (the word " invention" , of Latin inventio , is here to interpret in the direction of discovered ).

In the calendar of the Rite of the Church of Jerusalem, attested at the beginning of Ve S., the festival of the invention of the Cross is dated May 7th. The Exaltation of the Cross on September 14th, partly borrowed from the liturgy of the Good Friday, is also attested as of this time.

At the 7th century: Héraclius and the week of the tyrophagie

In the centuries following the diffusion of the accounts concerning the Invention of the Cross, the worship develops in several points of the Mediterranean basin, in particular in Jerusalem and Constantinople.

Palestine remains relatively peaceful until the 7th century. But in 614, Jerusalem, center of Christian pilgrimage, fall to the hands from Persians from the king Chosroès II, in war then against the Roman Empire of the East (or Byzantine Empire). The Perse S carry with them, in their spoils, the True Cross like several other relics, and burn the churches of Jerusalem. They preserve nevertheless the relic because it represents a true “currency of exchange” in the event of negotiations with Byzance.

A few years later, the Byzantine Héraclius I {{er}}, victorious emperor from Persians with Ninive in 627, force the successor of Chosroès to sign a peace treaty, and obtains the restitution of the Cross. He then brings back the relic to Jerusalem, the door solemnly with the Martyrdom and restores the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The return of the Cross in Jerusalem, in 630, gave place to Pogroms anti-Jews, which is the reason of the institution of an expiatory fast, which will become the " week of the tyrophagie" , the eighth week before Easter. Various sources refer to this expiatory fast, in particular the Triodion , as well as the historian arabo-melkite Eutychès of Alexandria.

The Cross in Constantinople and Jerusalem

A few years only after the triumphal reinstalment of the Cross in Jerusalem starts the Arab conquest, which makes pass Jerusalem under Moslem domination. Byzance loses Palestine in 638. The worship of the continuous Holy Cross in Jerusalem, but it intensifies especially in the territories remained under Christian domination, and particularly in Constantinople.

This same year, two other relics of Passion, the Holy Sponge and the Sainte Lance are recovered by the Patrice Nicétas, which sends them to Constantinople, the capital Empire, where they are solemnly shown to the people gathered in the basilica Holy-Sophie the feastday of the Exaltation of the Cross. It is there an episode of this long “migration of the relics of the life of Jesus”, Jerusalem towards Constantinople and beyond. The Byzantine capital, as well as it had become the “Rome news” since Constantin, took from now on the aspect of a “Jerusalem news”. The church of the “Virgin of the Headlight”, located in the middle of the imperial palace, thus shelters many relics of Passion: the Holy Lance having bored the side of Christ, the nails having been used for attaching it to the Cross, the crown of spines or sponge used to water Jesus vinegar.

In Jerusalem, the worship of the Holy Cross continues initially without great difficulties, even if the pilgrims are necessarily fewer. The Moslems indeed grant to the Christians of the city the possibility of preserving their sanctuaries and of practicing their worship. It is only as from the 10th century that the difficulties emerge. Vis-a-vis persecutions of the caliph Fatimide Al-Hâkim, the Christians of Jerusalem must, in 1009, to hide the fragment of the Holy Cross preserved until there at the the Holy Sepulchre. It would have remained dissimulated during eighty ten years.

The True Cross the proof Crusades

In 1099 the cross of Godefroy de Bouillon take Jerusalem and establish the cross Holy Land kingdoms. The fragment of the True Cross hidden in 1009 is miraculeusement redécouvert and reinstalled with honor in the basilica of the the Holy Sepulchre. The pilgrims come in mass prosterner in front of it. It then becomes the symbol of the cross kingdom of Jerusalem: the Crusaders indeed take it along to the front of the enemy to each battle.

In 1187, Saladin gains over the Crusaders the Bataille of Hattin. It then puts the hand on the Holy Cross, that the king Guy de Lusignan had carried with him with the combat. Jerusalem fall shortly after to the hands from Saladin. In the news of the disaster, the pope Urbain III would have died on the blow. This fragment of the True Cross disappears then: the history loses from now on the trace, and it found forever.

In 1203, a new crusade (the fourth) is preached by the pope Innocent III with an aim of taking again Jerusalem; it is however diverted towards Constantinople, the crusaders being turned over against their old ally. The city is taken by storm the April 12th 1204, and is put at bag during three days. Nevertheless relics of the palatine vault of the Headlight, from which the fragment of the Cross preserved at Constantinople, escape for a time from their covetousness and plundering. They are allotted in division to the emperor Baudouin VI of Hainaut that the Crusaders elect among their chiefs and place at the head of the new empire which they found then, the “Latin Empire of Constantinople”.

From Constantinople to Paris

But this empire fragile and artificial, is threatened of all shares, always at the edge of the financial bankruptcy: that obliges the Latin emperors to be solved to pawn near the Venetian ones, then to yield to them, the last treasures which remain to them, in particular the relics of the imperial vault of the Headlight. If the Holy Cross, like the other christic relics, testified to the religious enthusiasm of the kings, it was especially used to ensure legitimacy to be able to them near the people.

In attests the interest of Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) for these last. In 1238, it repurchases with Venetian part of the relics guaranteed by the Latin emperor of Constantinople, of which the Couronne of spines. The September 30th 1241, the True Cross and seven other relics of Christ, in particular the “Holy Blood” and “Pierre of the Sepulchre” are acquired. Lastly, in 1242, nine other relics, from which the “Holy Lance” and the “Sainte Sponge” came to join the preceding ones.

To accommodate the whole of the relics, whose fragment of the Cross, the king makes build and devote in 1248 the “the Ste Chapelle”, a place crowned in the center of Paris, in the island of the City, in the center of the royal palace (current Law courts). In the Ste Chapelle, inside the high vault, the Holy Cross and the other relics from Constantinople are locked up until the Révolution in a “Large monumental Châsse” of goldsmithery, high of more than three meters. The Cross with double cross-piece, high of almost one meter to it only, had been withdrawn from its Byzantine ECRIN. So that it can be visible of all, it had been entirely covered with Cristal, covered inside Dorure S and crimped Perle S and of invaluable stones.

The Revolution marks the disappearance of this relic. Indeed, the April 25th 1794, the True Cross is stripped precious substances which decorated it and its trace is lost. Nevertheless there remain relics of the wood of the Cross and a nail of this one in the Treasury of the Sacristie of the Notre-Dame cathedral.

Other sanctuaries having of the relics of the Cross

It will have been understood that it is difficult to recall the history of the True Cross because this one was cut out in many pieces distributed to many recipients. Today, the pieces of the cross of Christ are very dispersed, and lists it these relics is long:

a fragment is had with Saint-Sernin Toulouse, where it is still today.

Another piece of the True Cross is preserved in Anjou, in Baugé.

There also exists in the collegial Holy-Cross with Liege, four fragments laid out in a small gold cross bordered of a grenetis and punctuated of pearls, the center being occupied by a semi-precious stone on a triptych reliquary in oak covered with copper gilded, pushed back, enamelled and engraved. The emperor Henri II of the Holy roman Empire would have offered in 1006 to the Collégiale Holy-Cross, the relics of the True received Cross of the king de France Robert II says the Piles. Until 1996, before it is restored, the reliquary of the treasure was visible in the treasure of the cathedral. It is currently exposed to the MARAM (Museum of religious art and art mosan in Liege) where it is preserved by security measure but also with an aim of being presented to many people. This staurothèque (or reliquary of the True Cross) carries to the reverse an inscription dedicated in the name of Constantin VII and of its son Romain II. Composed of gold, money gilded, enamel Partitioned on gold, of pearls and invaluable stones, it was carried out in the middle of the 10th century (between 945 and 959) and the reliquary with compartments, in the name of the Proèdre Basile the parakoimomene , bastard of the Byzantine emperor Romain Ier Lécapène, was carried out at the end of the 10th century (between 968 and 985). It was carried out in the imperial workshops of Constantinople. Fragments of the relic are enchased in the shape of cross in orfévrée mounting. Several small boxes carrying of the inscriptions in Greek contain other objects crowned like fragments of the tunic, shroud, crown of spines or even of the nails.

a piece of the Holy Cross is also held with the orthodoxe parish copte of Sarcelles in Paris region.

a piece of the True Cross is visible in a reliquary in Germany with Limbourg-on-the-Lahn.

Santo Toribio de Liébana, in the north of Spain (province of Santander), is to date the principal sanctuary of veneration of the Cross.

Many are thus the churches which claim to have fragments of the True Cross. A study of the beginning of the 20th century establishes that the bulkiest piece would be preserved in a monastery of the Mont Athos. The other fragments, by decreasing size, would be preserved at Rome, Brussels, Venice, Ghent and Paris.

Disputes

The great diffusion of the relics of the True Cross, as well as the thinness of the transmission chain, of course involved a certain number of disputes. At the end of the Middle Ages, the number of churches claiming to have a fragment of the True Cross was such, in Occident as in the East, that the doubt becomes currency as the belief in the relics declines. Jean Calvin writes in his Traité relics that the whole of the fragments could easily fill a ship. According to a famous proverb, with all the wood of the cross, “one could have heated Rome during one year”!

Without entering an always significant polemic, it goes without saying these criticisms, although exaggerated, are historically founded. If the whole of the relics preserved to date does not represent a quantity higher than that of a cross such as it could have existed in Ier century of our era, that does not mean however that they are all authentic descendants of the wood fragments discovered in Jerusalem at the beginning of IVe century - and even less authentic fragments of the cross having really been used for the crucifixion of Christ! The hiatus of approximately 300 years between the death of Jesus and the discovery of the cross by holy Helene, as well as the forty years which separate this alleged discovered from the appearance of the relics in the churches of Rome, Jerusalem and Constantinople, has amply justified the doubts emitted for now five centuries, initially by the Protestant theologists then today by the vast majority of the historians.

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